Many people are aware that Patrick is known as the ‘patron saint
of Ireland.’ However, that may be the
limited of their knowledge of him. What
little historical fact we do know about Patrick challenges how he is depicted
by Irish mythology. The first thing to
be remembered is that Patrick was British, not Irish – his father was a church
elder and his grandfather a church deacon, either in Scotland, Wales or the
west of England. Patrick was born and
bred in Britain. He was brought up in a
Christian family where he would have been taught the truth of the Gospel, a
fact backed up by his later evangelisation of Ireland in adulthood, and as recorded
in his “Confessions.” Having been captured
by Irish raiders, Patrick was brought to Slemish in County Antrim, where he
tended sheep. It was here on this lonely
hill that he began to reconsider God, and His call on his life, and eventually
escaped.
Yet when he was home again in Britain, and having recognised
God’s call to him, he trained for ordination to the Christian ministry. While undergoing the discipline of
theological training, he heard ‘the voice of the Irish,’ almost like the
apostle Paul’s vision of the man from Macedonia (Acts 16:11), calling him to
return to Ireland. When ordained, he
obeyed God’s call, and arrived at Saul in County Down, he planted his first
church there. His missionary and
evangelistic efforts took him right across Ulster and into the rest of Ireland,
making Armagh his base. He is reported to
be buried in Downpatrick.
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